I’ve just had a really massive weekend.
It started with the Shabbat Dinner on Friday night in the lead up to the “Unleashing the Elijah Legacy” conference; then starting at 6.30 am to set up for the Conference worship on Saturday, going the whole day, starting at 6.30 am on Sunday for worship at FCC, then another round of Conference in the evening. I think we finally left last night around 10 pm. I was exhausted! But it was worth every moment!
I had the privilege of serving in the Conference worship team with a team of amazing musicians.
One of the themes of the Conference was a new paradigm of the kingdom of God. Ancient Israel was the prototype of a nation that was ruled by God as her King.
It is interesting that in Exodus 19, when God was establishing His kingship over Israel and devising the nation’s laws and institutions, His intent was that Israel would be a kingdom of priests. Now, in the New Covenant, 1 Peter 2:9 tells us that God has called us, the church, to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation to show forth HIs praises!
As Peter Tsukahira shared during the Conference, for the church to move into the new paradigm of the kingdom, we must recover the priesthood of believers. Even though 500 years ago, Luther had signalled this as part of the Protestant Reformation, it was only in concept, rather than in practice and reality. If the entire church would only live out the priesthood of believers; if all of us would live out God’s calling in our lives in true sonship; if we would activate the gifting that God has designed and inbuilt into us; then the kingdom of God would surge forward powerfully in our generation!
It was significant that the worship team for the Conference consisted of worshippers from different congregations in our city. A house divided itself cannot stand, so how much more must the church be united!
Frankly, if the priesthood of believers was recovered, we would cease to talk about worship leaders. We would just have facilitators of worship, because every part of the body would not need to be led into worship. They would all come ready! But whilst we await that moment, worship leaders continue to serve this important role of helping people encounter God in worship.
Now, if we truly worshipped, then we would truly worship. I know that sounds elliptical and confusing, but let me put it another way. If we truly can come into God’s presence through praise (“worship” in the narrow sense), then we would understand how to truly offer our entire lives as living sacrifices (“worship” in the broad sense) so that we can truly live out His calling as priests. And we will then see the priesthood of all believers come to pass; and we would fulfill God’s agenda of being a kingdom of priests.
So this weekend,what the worship team did wasn’t just to provide musical preludes to great messages. We were prophetically modelling the fulfillment of God’s design for the church and facilitating the church in Perth’s journey towards recovering a powerful truth.
It was an honour to serve with some of the boldest and prophetic and technically excellent musos around (in that order!). I am so privileged to be part of what God was doing over this weekend and will continue to do until His kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven!
Here’s the team:
Worship Leader/Keys: Karen Davis (Carmel Assembly, Israel) | Music Director/Drums: Audrey Tang (Church of our Saviour Singapore) | Vocals: Stephanie Truscott (Mt Zion Aussie Indigenous Church), Lisa Palm (Kingsway Christian Church, Joel Lim (Nations Church), me (Faith Community Church) | Electric Guitar: Tamon Nishikawa (Nations Church) | Acoustic Guitar: Luke Tan (Faith Community Church | Bass: Johanan Ling (Kingdom Light Christian Centre) | Violin: Paul Jansz (St John Lutheran Church) | Sound: Ansen Soon (Faith Community Church) | AV: Mary Lynn Chee (Faith Community Church) | Coordinator: Mabel Chua (Kingdom Light Christian Centre)
Thanks guys for the amazing time we shared over the weekend!
And here’s the recording for the opening session.
The Worship Revolution 